Map of the Chinese plain at the start of the Warring States Period in the 5th century BC.Map of the Warring States Period, after Yue conquered Wu. Other Baiyue peoples are shown in the south.
The Old Yue language (Chinese: 古越語; pinyin: Gu Yueyu; Jyutping: Gu2 Jyut6 Jyu5; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Kó͘-oa̍t-gí / Kó͘-oa̍t-gír / Kó͘-oa̍t-gú) is an unknown unclassified language, or groups of various languages, spoken in ancient southern China, and northern Vietnam circa 700s BCE or later. It can refer to Yue, which was spoken in the realm of Yue during the Spring and Autumn period. It can also refer to the different languages spoken by the Baiyue. Possible languages spoken by them may have been of Kra–Dai, Hmong–Mien, Austronesian, Austroasiatic and other origins.
Knowledge of Yue speech is limited to fragmentary references and possible loanwords in other languages, principally Chinese. The longest attestation is the Song of the Yue Boatman, a short song transcribed phonetically in Chinese characters in 528 BC and included, with a Chinese version, in the Garden of Stories compiled by Liu Xiang five centuries later.[1]
Native Nanyue people likely spoke Old Yue, while Han settlers and government officials spoke Old Chinese. Some suggest that the descendants of the Nanyue spoke Austroasiatic languages.[2] Others suggest a language related to the modern Zhuang people. It is plausible to say that the Yue spoke more than one language. Old Chinese in the region was likely much influenced by Yue speech (and vice versa), and many Old Yue loanwords in Chinese have been identified by modern scholars.[3]
Classification theories
There is some disagreement about the languages the Yue spoke, with candidates drawn from the non-Sinitic language families still represented in areas of southern China to this day, which includes Kra–Dai, Hmong–Mien, and Austroasiatic languages;[4] as Chinese, Kra–Dai, Hmong–Mien, and the Vietic branch of Austroasiatic have similar tone systems, syllable structure, grammatical features and lack of inflection, but these features are believed to have spread by means of diffusion across the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, rather than indicating common descent.[5][6]
Scholars in China often assume that the Yue spoke an early form of Kra–Dai. According to Sagart (2008), this is far from self-evident, because the core of the Kra–Dai area geographically is located in Hainan and the China-Vietnam border region, which is beyond the extreme southern end of the Yue area. The linguist Wei Qingwen gave a rendering of the "Song of the Yue boatman" in Standard Zhuang. Zhengzhang Shangfang proposed an interpretation of the song in written Thai (dating from the late 13th century) as the closest available approximation to the original language, but his interpretation remains controversial.[1][7]
Peiros (2011) shows with his analysis that the homeland of Austroasiatic is somewhere near the Yangtze. He suggests southern Sichuan or slightly west from it, as the likely homeland of proto-Austroasiatic speakers before they migrated to other parts of China and then into Southeast Asia. He further suggests that the family must be as old as proto-Austronesian and proto-Sino-Tibetan or even older.[8] The linguists Sagart (2011) and Bellwood (2013) support the theory of an origin of Austroasiatic along the Yangtze river in southern China.[9][better source needed]
Sagart (2008) suggests that the Old Yue language, together with the proto-Austronesian language, was descended from the language or languages of the Tánshíshān‑Xītóu culture complex (modern-day Fujian province of China), making the Old Yue language a sister language to proto-Austronesian, which Sagart sees as the origin of the Kra–Dai languages.[10]
Behr (2009) also notes that the Chǔ dialect of Old Chinese was influenced by several substrata, predominantly Kra-Dai, but also possibly Austroasiatic, Austronesian and Hmong-Mien.[11]
Kra–Dai arguments
The proto-Kra–Dai language has been hypothesized to originate in the Lower Yangtze valleys. Ancient Chinese texts refer to non-Sinitic languages spoken across this substantial region and their speakers as "Yue". Although those languages are extinct, traces of their existence could be found in unearthed inscriptional materials, ancient Chinese historical texts and non-Han substrata in various Southern Chinese dialects. Thai, one of the Tai languages and the most-spoken language in the Kra–Dai language family, has been used extensively in historical-comparative linguistics to identify the origins of language(s) spoken in the ancient region of South China. One of the very few direct records of non-Sinitic speech in pre-Qin and Han times having been preserved so far is the "Song of the Yue Boatman" (Yueren Ge 越人歌), which was transcribed phonetically in Chinese characters in 528 BC, and found in the 善说 Shanshuo chapter of the Shuoyuan 说苑 or 'Garden of Persuasions'.
Willeam Meacham (1996) reports that Chinese linguists have shown strong evidence of Tai vestiges in former Yue areas: Lin (1990) found Tai elements in some Min dialects, Zhenzhang (1990) has proposed Tai etymologies and interpretations for certain place names in the former states of Wu and Yue, and Wei (1982) found similarities in the words, combinations and rhyming scheme between the "Song of the Yue Boatman" and the Kam–Tai languages.[12]
James R. Chamberlain (2016) proposes that the Kra-Dai language family was formed as early as the 12th century BCE in the middle of the Yangtze basin, coinciding roughly with the establishment of the Chu state and the beginning of the Zhou dynasty.[13] Following the southward migrations of Kra and Hlai (Rei/Li) peoples around the 8th century BCE, the Yue (Be-Tai people) started to break away and move to the east coast in the present-day Zhejiang province, in the 6th century BCE, forming the state of Yue and conquering the state of Wu shortly thereafter.[13] According to Chamberlain, Yue people (Be-Tai) began to migrate southwards along the east coast of China to what are now Guangxi, Guizhou and northern Vietnam, after Yue was conquered by Chu around 333 BCE. There the Yue (Be-Tai) formed the polities Xi Ou, which became the Northern Tai and the Luo Yue, which became the Central-Southwestern Tai.[13] However, Pittayaporn (2014), after examining layers of Chinese loanwords in proto-Southwestern Tai and other historical evidence, proposes that the southwestward migration of southwestern Tai-speaking tribes from the modern Guangxi to the mainland of Southeast Asia must have taken place only sometime between the 8th–10th centuries CE,[14] long after 44 CE, when Chinese sources last mentioned Luo Yue in the Red River Delta.[15]
Proposed genesis of Daic languages and their relation with Austronesian languages (Blench, 2018)[16]
Kra-Dai (Tai-Kadai) migration route according to James R. Chamberlain (2016).[17]
Tai-Kadai migration route according to Matthias Gerner's Northeast to Southwest Hypothesis.[18]
Ancient textual evidence
In the early 1980s, Zhuang linguist, Wei Qingwen (韦庆稳), electrified the scholarly community in Guangxi by identifying the language in the "Song of the Yue Boatman" as a language ancestral to Zhuang.[19] Wei used reconstructed Old Chinese for the characters and discovered that the resulting vocabulary showed strong resemblance to modern Zhuang.[20] Later, Zhengzhang Shangfang (1991) followed Wei’s insight but used Thai script for comparison, since this orthography dates from the 13th century and preserves archaisms relative to the modern pronunciation.[20][1] Zhengzhang notes that 'evening, night, dark' bears the C tone in Wuming Zhuang xamC2 and ɣamC2 'night'. The item raa normally means 'we inclusive' but in some places, e.g. Tai Lue and White Tai 'I'.[21] However, Laurent criticizes Zhengzhang's interpretation as anachronistic, because however archaic that Thai script is, Thai language was only written 2000 years after the song had been recorded; even if the Proto-Kam-Tai might have emerged by 6th century BCE, its pronunciation would have been substantially different from Thai.[7] The following is a simplified interpretation of the "Song of the Yue Boatman" by Zhengzhang Shangfang quoted by David Holm (2013) with Thai script and Chinese glosses being omitted:[22][a]
濫
ɦgraams
glamx
evening
兮
ɦee
ɦee
PTCL
抃
brons
blɤɤn
joyful
草
tshuuʔ
cɤɤ, cɤʔ
to meet
濫
ɦgraams
glamx
evening
濫 兮 抃 草 濫
ɦgraams ɦee brons tshuuʔ ɦgraams
glamx ɦee blɤɤn {cɤɤ, cɤʔ} glamx
evening PTCL joyful {to meet} evening
Oh, the fine night, we meet in happiness tonight!
予
la
raa
we, I
昌
thjang < khljang
djaangh
be apt to
枑 澤
gaah draag
kraʔ - ʔdaak
shy, ashamed
予
la
raa
we, I
昌
thjang
djaangh
be good at
州
tju < klju
cɛɛu
to row
予 昌 {枑 澤} 予 昌 州
la {thjang < khljang} {gaah draag} la thjang {tju < klju}
Hidden forever in my heart, ah! is my adoration and longing.
Some scattered non-Sinitic words found in the two ancient Chinese fictional texts, the Mu Tianzi Zhuan (Chinese: 穆天子傳) (4th c. B.C.) and the Yuejue shu (Chinese: 越絕書) (1st c. A.D.), can be compared to lexical items in Kra-Dai languages. These two texts are only preserved in corrupt versions and share a rather convoluted editorial history. Wolfgang Behr (2002) makes an attempt to identify the origins of those words:
Besides a limited number of lexical items left in Chinese historical texts, remnants of language(s) spoken by the ancient Yue can be found in non-Han substrata in Southern Chinese dialects, e.g.: Wu, Min, Hakka, Yue, etc. Robert Bauer (1987) identifies twenty seven lexical items in Yue, Hakka and Min varieties, which share Kra–Dai roots.[27] The following are some examples cited from Bauer (1987):[27]
to beat, pound: Yue-Guangzhoutap8 ← Siamesethup4/top2, Longzhou tupD1, Po-ai tup3/tɔpD1, Mak/Dong tapD2, Tai Nuea top5, Sui-Lingam tjăpD2, Sui-Jungchiang tjăpD2, Sui-Pyo tjăpD2, T'entjapD2, White Tai tup4, Red Tai tup3, Shanthup5, Lao Nong Khai thip3, Lue Moeng Yawng tup5, Leiping-Zhuang thop5/top4, Western Nungtup4, Yaytup5, Saekthap6, Tai Lo thup3, Tai Mawthup3, Tai No top5, Wuming Zhuangtup8, Li-Jiamao tap8.
to bite: Yue-Guangzhoukhap8 ← Siamesekhop2, Longzhou khoop5, Po-ai hap3, Ahomkhup, Shan khop4, Lükhop, White Tai khop2, Nung khôp, Hsi-lin hapD2S, Wuming-Zhuang hap8, T'ien-pao hap, Black Tai khop2, Red Tai khop3, Lao Nong Khai khop1, Western Nungkhap6, etc.
to cover (1): Yue-Guangzhouhom6/ham6 ← Siamesehom2, Longzhou hum5, Po-ai hɔmB1, Lao hom, Ahom hum, Shan hom2, Lü hum, White Tai hum2, Black Tai hoom2, Red Tai hom3, Nunghôm, Tayhôm, Thohoom, T'ien-pao ham, Dioi hom, Hsi-lin hɔm, T'ien-chow hɔm, Lao Nong Khai hom3, Western Nungham2, etc.
Yue-Hashimoto describes the Yue Chinese languages spoken in Guangdong as having a Tai influence.[28] Robert Bauer (1996) points out twenty nine possible cognates between Cantonese spoken in Guangzhou and Kra–Dai, of which seven cognates are confirmed to originate from Kra–Dai sources:[29]
Li Hui (2001) finds 126 Kra-Dai cognates in MaqiaoWu dialect spoken in the suburbs of Shanghai out of more than a thousand lexical items surveyed.[36] According to the author, these cognates are likely traces of the Old Yue language.[36] The two tables below show lexical comparisons between Maqiao Wu dialect and Kra-Dai languages quoted from Li Hui (2001). He notes that, in Wu dialect, final consonants such as -m, -ɯ, -i, ụ, etc don't exist, and therefore, -m in Maqiao dialect tends to become -ŋ or -n, or it's simply absent, and in some cases -m even becomes final glottal stop.[37]
A well-known loanword into Sino-Tibetan[41] is k-la for tiger (Hanzi: 虎; Old Chinese (ZS): *qʰlaːʔ > Mandarin pinyin: hǔ, Sino-Vietnamese hổ) from Proto-Austroasiatic *kalaʔ (compare Vietic *k-haːlʔ > kʰaːlʔ > Vietnamese khái and Muong khảl).
The early Chinese name for the Yangtze (Chinese: 江; pinyin: jiāng; EMC: kœ:ŋ; OC: *kroŋ; Cantonese: "kong") was later extended to a general word for "river" in south China. Norman and Mei suggest that the word is cognate with Vietnamese sông (from *krong) and Mon kruŋ "river".
*-dəŋA "shaman" may be compared with Vietnameseđồng (/ɗoŋ2/) "to shamanize, to communicate with spirits" and Mon doŋ "to dance (as if) under demonic possession".[43][44]
*kiɑnB 囝 "son" appears to be related to Vietnamese con (/kɔn/) and Mon kon "child".[45][46]
Norman and Mei's hypothesis has been criticized by Laurent Sagart, who demonstrates that many of the supposed loan words can be better explained as archaic Chinese words, or even loans from Austronesian languages; he also argues that the Vietic cradle must be located farther south in current north Vietnam.[10][47]
Norman & Mei also compares Min verb "to know, to recognize" 捌 (Proto-Min*pat; whence Fuzhou/paiʔ˨˦/ & Amoy/pat̚˧˨/) to Vietnamese biết, also meaning "to know, to recognize". However, Sagart contends that the Min & Vietnamese sense "to know, to recognize" is semantically extended from well-attested Chinese verb 別 "to distinguish, discriminate, differentiate" ((Mandarin: bié; MC: /bˠiɛt̚/; OC: *bred);[48] thus Sagart considers Vietnamese biết as a loanword from Chinese.
According to the Shuowen Jiezi (100 AD), "In Nanyue, the word for dog is (Chinese: 撓獀; pinyin: náosōu; EMC: nuw-ʂuw)", possibly related to other Austroasiatic terms. Sōu is "hunt" in modern Chinese. However, in Shuowen Jiezi, the word for dog is also recorded as 獶獀 with its most probable pronunciation around 100 CE must have been *ou-sou, which resembles proto-Austronesian *asu, *u‑asu 'dog' than it resembles the palatal‑initialed Austroasiatic monosyllable Vietnamese chó, Old Mon clüw, etc.[7]
Zheng Xuan (127–200 AD) wrote that 扎 (Middle Chinese: /t͡ʃˠat̚/, modern Mandarin Chinese zā, modern Sino-Vietnamese: "trát") was the word used by the Yue people (越人) to mean "die". Norman and Mei reconstruct this word as OC *tsət and relate it to Austroasiatic words with the same meaning, such as Vietnamese chết and Mon chɒt. However, Laurent Sagart points out that 扎 is a well‑attested Chinese word also meaning "to die", which is overlooked by Norman and Mei.[48] That this word occurred in the Old Yue language in Han times could be because the Old Yue language borrowed it from Chinese.[48] Therefore, the resemblance of this Chinese word to an Austroasiatic word is probably accidental.[48]
According to Sagart, the resemblance between the Min word *-dəŋA "shaman" or "spirit healer" and the Vietnamese term đồng is undoubtedly by chance.[48]
Moreover, Chamberlain (1998) posits that the Austroasiatic predecessor of the modern Vietnamese language originated in modern-day Bolikhamsai Province and Khammouane Province in Laos as well as parts of Nghệ An Province and Quảng Bình Province in Vietnam, rather than in the region north of the Red River Delta.[49] However, Ferlus (2009) showed that the inventions of pestle, oar and a pan to cook sticky rice, which is the main characteristic of the Đông Sơn culture, correspond to the creation of new lexicons for these inventions in Northern Vietic (Việt–Mường) and Central Vietic (Cuoi-Toum).[50] The new vocabularies of these inventions were proven to be derivatives from original verbs rather than borrowed lexical items. The current distribution of Northern Vietic also correspond to the area of Đông Sơn culture. Thus, Ferlus concludes that the Northern Vietic (Viet-Muong) speakers are the "most direct heirs" of the Dongsonians, who have resided in Southern part of Red River Delta and North Central Vietnam since the 1st millennium BC.[50] In addition, archaeogenetics demonstrated that before the Dong Son period, the Red River Delta's inhabitants were predominantly Austroasiatic: genetic data from Phùng Nguyên culture's burial site (dated to 1,800 BCE) at Mán Bạc (in present-day Ninh Bình Province, Vietnam) have close proximity to modern Austroasiatic speakers, while "mixed genetics" from Đông Sơn culture's Núi Nấp site showed affinity to "Dai from China, Tai-Kadai speakers from Thailand, and Austroasiatic speakers from Vietnam, including the Kinh"; these results indicated that significant contact happened between Tai speakers and Vietic speakers.[51]
Ye (2014) identified a few Austroasiatic loanwords in Ancient Chu dialect of Old Chinese.[52]
Writing system
There is no known evidence of a writing system among the Yue peoples of the Lingnan region in pre-Qin times, and the Chinese conquest of the region is believed to have introduced writing to the area. However, Liang Tingwang, a professor from the Central University of Nationalities, said that the ancient Zhuang had their own proto-writing system but had to give it up because of the Qinshi Emperor's tough policy and to adopt the Han Chinese writing system, which ultimately developed into the old Zhuang demotic script alongside the classical Chinese writing system, during the Tang dynasty (618–907).[53]
Notes
^The upper row represents the original text, the next row the Old Chinese pronunciation, the third a transcription of written Thai, and the fourth line English glosses. Finally, there is Zhengzhang's English translation.
^The second syllable na:3 may correspond to Tai morpheme for 'field'.
^LaPolla, Randy J. (2010). Language Contact and Language Change in the History of the Sinitic Languages. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2(5), 6858-6868.
^Reconstructing Austroasiatic prehistory; Chapter in the forthcoming Jenny, M. & P. Sidwell (eds.). forthcoming 2015. Handbook of the Austroasiatic Languages. Leiden: Brill. (Page 1: “Sagart (2011) and Bellwood (2013) favour the middle Yangzi”)
^Behr, Wolfgang (2009). "Dialects, diachrony, diglossia or all three? Tomb text glimpses into the language(s) of Chǔ",
TTW-3, Zürich, 26.-29.VI.2009, “Genius loci”
^ abBauer, Robert S. (1987). 'Kadai loanwords in southern Chinese dialects', Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan 32: 95–111.
^Yue-Hashimoto, Anne Oi-Kan (1972), Studies in Yue Dialects 1: Phonology of Cantonese, Cambridge University Press, p. 6, ISBN978-0-521-08442-0
^Chamberlain, J.R. 1998, "The origin of Sek: implications for Tai and Vietnamese history", in The International Conference on Tai Studies, ed. S. Burusphat, Bangkok, Thailand, pp. 97-128. Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University.
Bauer, Robert S. (1996), "Identifying the Tai substratum in Cantonese"(PDF), Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Languages and Linguistics, Pan-Asiatic Linguistics V: 1 806- 1 844, Bangkok: Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University at Salaya.
Sagart, Laurent (2008), "The expansion of Setaria farmers in East Asia", in Sanchez-Mazas, Alicia; Blench, Roger; Ross, Malcolm D.; Ilia, Peiros; Lin, Marie (eds.), Past human migrations in East Asia: matching archaeology, linguistics and genetics, Routledge, pp. 133–157, ISBN978-0-415-39923-4, Quote: in conclusion, there is no convincing evidence, linguistic or other, of an early Austroasiatic presence on the southeast China coast.
Zhengzhang Shangfang 1999. "An Interpretation of the Old Yue Language Written in Goujiàn's Wéijiă lìng" [句践"维甲"令中之古越语的解读]. In Minzu Yuwen4, pp. 1–14.
Zhengzhang Shangfang 1998. "Gu Yueyu" 古越語 [The old Yue language]. In Dong Chuping 董楚平 et al. Wu Yue wenhua zhi 吳越文化誌 [Record of the cultures of Wu and Yue]. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1998, vol. 1, pp. 253–281.
Zhengzhang Shangfang 1990. "Some Kam-Tai Words in Place Names of the Ancient Wu and Yue States" [古吴越地名中的侗台语成份]. In Minzu Yuwen6.
![Proposed genesis of Daic languages and their relation with Austronesian languages (Blench, 2018)[16]](/en/File:Genesis_of_Daic_languages_and_their_relation_with_Austronesians.png)
![Kra-Dai (Tai-Kadai) migration route according to James R. Chamberlain (2016).[17]](/en/File:Kra-Tai-Migration1.png)
![Tai-Kadai migration route according to Matthias Gerner's Northeast to Southwest Hypothesis.[18]](/en/File:Gerner_Tai-Kadai_migration_route.png)